


The Man in the Ivory Tower

by AngeNoir



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Tangled (2010) Fusion, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gaslighting, M/M, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4446518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has only ever wanted to see the Fourth of July fireworks in person. With all the technology at their fingertips, how can Obie <em>not</em> find his parents killers, anyway? He seriously doubted leaving the protected tower for one night would harm him. Still, Obie won't let him leave, and Tony had resigned himself to another July 4th passing him by.</p><p>Until the penthouse's elevator doors open and a stranger walks through. Tony's got a wrench in his hand, and the guy's knocked out and down before Tony could really think about it.</p><p>Now what's Tony to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Ivory Tower

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: Hello all! I apparently did research for a bunch of things, but New York's legal age was not one of them. x.x;; In New York, the legal age is 17, not 18, which means Tony is not jailbait, or underage. However, I'm not sure if I should remove the tag, since 17 can be underage in the U.S.? I'm thinking on it.
> 
> Sorry for that mistake!

**FATAL CAR CRASH; STARK INDUSTRIES’ FUTURE UNCERTAIN**

Stark Industries’ owner and founder, Howard Stark, drove off the road during his return trip from the Top of the World Resort, killing himself, his wife, Maria Stark, and his just-turned five-year old son, Anthony Edward Stark…

***

**ESTATE TO GO TO STARK’S CLOSE FRIEND AND CO-CEO OBADIAH STANE**

Personal friend and initial investor Obadiah Stane began the process to take Howard Stark’s position as head of Stark Industries last Tuesday when Stane hired Jonathon and Sons law firm to settle Stark’s sprawling estate. Stark died in a car accident a week ago…

***

**PROBLEMS CROP UP FOR OBADIAH STANE**

Acting CEO of Stark Industries Obadiah Stane experienced problems inheriting the estate of Howard Stark, a personal friend to Stane, due to legality issues and difficulties in recovering the bodies of Maria Stark and Anthony Stark. Stark Industries’ stocks dropped 30 points due to this instability…

***

**STARK INDUSTRIES GAINS DIRECTION**

Obadiah Stane was elected CEO by Stark Industries’ Board of Directors, though his position is still fragile due to the uncertain legality of stepping into the CEO position while Howard Stark’s estate is still unsettled…

***

**OLD DIRECTION, NEW DRIVE**

Stark Industries’ stocks rose by 20 points after the successful signing of a long-term military contract to build and supply weapons for the United States Army. CEO Obadiah Stane announced the new direction of the company dedicated to the early ideals of Howard Stark, who worked on experimental weaponry for the post-World War II era…

***

**STANE CONDEMNS VANKO’S ACTIONS**

Stark Industries’ CEO Obadiah Stane strongly denied all allegations that rouge Research and Development head Anton Vanko had approval from Stark Industries to sell schematics and chemical formulas to Russia and China…

 

“Sir?”

Tony ignored the robotic voice and bit his tongue, tilting his head at the wall. Really looked like it was moving. He probably shouldn’t have drunk the _entire_ bottle, but…

“Sir?”

“Yeah, PASCLE?”

“Sir, Goethe is seeking entrance into your workshop and has become quite insistent. I believe he has a message for you from Mr. Stane.”

Tony blinked at the wall – that had somehow gotten farther away from him and was oddly tilting outwards – and then half-twisted so that he could see the door to his workshop.

In the small area that he was confined to, the ‘attic’ was completely his. He may not be allowed to travel anywhere else, to venture outside of the three floors that encompassed the top of Stark Industries’ penthouse suite in downtown New York, but this space, what he built here, was uniquely _his_.

And he didn’t like Goethe well enough to let the German brute in his precious workshop.

“Alright, alright, ‘m comin’,” he mumbled as he picked himself up off the stool he had been slumped on and made his way to the glass door. His workshop took up the entirety of the top floor, and all walls were made of bulletproof, shock-proof glass. Tony had a bird’s eye view of the heart of downtown NYC, except at the back of his workshop where the wall simply looked out to the hallway that led to the staircase that would take him down to the second floor. Okay, Tony knew that is probably the one hundred and fifty second floor or something, but considering that he only had free run of the top three floors…

God, he was so stinking drunk.

(Again.)

Goethe was glaring at him through the glass, and Tony made a shooing motion with his hand. Goethe glared harder.

Tony folded his arms and stuck out his tongue.

After a moment, Goethe grudgingly took a step back. Tony tapped his fingers against the pad – it looked like a numerical code, but it was really a fingerprint lock – and then slithered out the narrow crack of the door. Goethe couldn’t force his way in (the door only opened a certain amount, one that made Tony need to wriggle through it and Goethe _certainly_ couldn’t fit through it) but he could – and did – grab Tony’s shoulder and yank him the rest of the way out. Tony jerked away – he really didn’t like people close to him, touching him, and even hated it when Obie grabbed him into a hug. He could dress himself by the age of four, wash himself by the age of five, and that took away most need for human contact, fuck you very much.

“Mr. Stane will be here soon, and you will need to wash up and prepare yourself for dinner,” Goethe rumbled.

Tony made a face at Goethe. “He was just here! Why is he coming back? I gave him that scanner and that new schematic for those drones…”

“Mr. Stane was here last Thursday.” Goethe’s voice was as cutting as a thundering growl could be.

Tony eyed Goethe, then cocked his head upwards. “PASCLE, what’s today?”

“The day is Tuesday, the third of July, sir.”

Fuck, now Tony remembered. Why he was drinking in the first place, really. Almost seventeen fucking years old and never been outside the four walls and getting fed up that he could use satellite to watch fireworks, to watch revolutions, to pinpoint a single man in the middle of a mountain range, and yet couldn’t find the man who ordered the hit on his parents and nearly killed him when he was five years old. In fact, he was getting so fed up with it, he was close to just leaving. The elevator that was the only way in or out of these top three floors had been programmed not to recognize Tony’s fingerprint and voiceprint, but he was nothing if not a computer genius. He could program around that, he knew. He had as an eight-year old kid, and Obie could do nothing electronically that Tony couldn’t do himself – and twice as fast at that.

The only problem, of course, was that he wasn’t sure what to do after that. That and his dosage problem.

Throughout his life, Obie had provided him with everything. As a child, Obie had given him Dawson and Linda, gave Tony a couple of old books, and Legos. When Obie realized that Tony was building models of engines and seemed to have an instinctive grasp on the workings of computers, he provided scrap bits, spare circuitry, computer textbooks. Tony had built his first radio-controlled car at the age of five, cannibalized it at the age of five and a half, and reconstructed it to come when called and follow simple voice commands by the age of six. Obie was taking care of the company while Tony was hidden away so that no one could find him, and Obie constantly praised Tony for his genius while simultaneously warning him that it was _that_ kind of genius that had led to someone killing Howard Stark in the first place and it was important not to let anyone know what he could do if given two seconds and a bit of solder.

_“They’ll take you away, make you build what they want, and everyone will know where you are, and the people who killed your father and mother would know too. I’m working on it, Tony, have a law firm hired and everything, but I gotta run the company, too, gotta keep up appearances. Just give it time, Tony.”_

Tony’d given it time. He’d given it ten fucking years, because the last time he had gotten free at the age of seven (thanks, in part, to the radio-controlled car that could replicate retinal scans) he’d nearly died because he’d missed his dosage, and been called a freak, and left to die because of his prosthetic. Understandably burned, he decided Obie was right and people would hate him on sight because of the metallic pump taped onto his chest that regulated the dosage of his medication and the mechanical limb that took the place of his lower left leg.

But he was seventeen years old and fuck it, he didn’t care about the world anymore, he just wanted to see some fucking _fireworks_ was that too much to ask?

Goethe gripped Tony’s shoulder harder, dragging him into the small, claustrophobic elevator that connected these top three floors of the tower together, and punched the button for the lower level that housed the eating and living areas. Tony jerked out of his thoughts to pull away violently, scowling. “What the fuck, you bastard?” he snarled, even though he said the same thing every time and Goethe did it the next time anyway.

“Mr. Stane is on his way. Try to make yourself more… presentable.”

The elevator doors opened, and Tony sneered at Goethe – motor oil in his hair and on his face, burns and cuts on his hands and arms, dark circles under his eyes, Tony _knew_ he wasn’t much to look at – as he moved out of the elevator and into the kitchen, absently pouring himself a chlorophyll smoothie that helped to counteract the palladium poisoning that came from his leg. “Why don’t you run along and just fetch your master, huh Goethe, babe? If Obie wants to speak to me he can do it from his own mouth. Don’t need your ugly mug looming around here if I can help it.”

Goethe looked perilously close to hitting Tony – but, then again, Goethe always looked like that, and had taken a swing at Tony more than once over Tony’s life. As it was, Goethe ground his teeth and grimaced before turning on his heel and walking to the only elevator that connected with the lower part of SI Tower.

Tony watched Goethe go with something akin to longing.

“If I may be so bold, sir, you could leave whenever you wanted, you know. There is nothing physical stopping you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and sighing. “How’s that dosage mechanism coming along?”

“Mark III is in the final stages of the rendering and will be completely manufactured in seven hours, eighteen minutes, and forty-two seconds.”

Tony moved to the front room and slumped on the couch. It felt like even searching out another bottle of whiskey would be too much effort. He was fucking tired of everything – of being afraid, of being unable to do what he wanted, of being locked in a mold he hadn’t wanted and couldn’t change.

His leg had been cut off at above the knee because of the car accident, and as a little kid he’d had a stiff, ugly prosthetic that didn’t bend and didn’t blend in with the rest of his body. Obie had pointed out often that other little children didn’t look like him, that other children would be afraid of the freak, and so until he was seven, Tony had resigned himself to living with his robots and his tutors until he could manage to better engineer a more streamlined version of his prosthetic. At eight, though, Tony had not only redesigned his prosthetic, he had no tutor or Goethe or Obie to bother him for three or four days, he had a cannibalized electronic car that could replicate Obie’s retina scan and crack Obie’s code on the elevator, and he had a working plan to bypass the security of both his rooms up at the top of the tower and the security for the rest of the tower. He knew where the closest park was, he had the streets mapped out, and though he wouldn’t have any way to contact his limited AI system (this was, of course, back before he’d given PASCLE a name) he figured, being a boy genius, he’d be perfectly fine on his own.

And, well, he had been. Until he’d gone into cardiac arrest because the redesigned prosthetic was made of far more palladium than his previous prosthetic, and that much palladium required an antidote every four hours to keep him from dying of palladium poisoning. Now, he wasn’t an _idiot_ – he knew, when redesigning his prosthetic, that palladium had been in the nerve connectors and been in the wires of the first one, but the problems with his first prosthetic (he’d thought) was that it was nothing more than an elaborate peg-leg, made to bend when he needed to sit down but stiff, the neural relays embarrassingly slow, and the motions jerky. He thought if he made the leg more… _human_ that other kids wouldn’t see him as a freak.

Still, when the kids had flocked around him, worried about his collapse on the soccer field, and realized that his pants hid wires and metal instead of flesh, they’d called him a freak, disgusting, weird, in the obliviously painful and degrading way only kids knew how to be. Then Goethe had swept in, from where Tony had no idea, and dragged him back to the tower.

Obie had been upset, to say the very least. Saying he was volcanically furious was probably an understatement. At the end of his lecture and sharp-tongued critique of Tony’s work, he ended his three-hour long talk by pointing out how, even with Tony’s best work, the kids still thought him a freak, and no one outside of the tower would have helped him. They all had left him to die, and it was only Goethe who saved him, and Goethe didn’t even like Tony, was only paid to be near Tony. Obie was the only person in the world who voluntarily stuck to Tony – the tutors, the nannies, the part-time butler and cleaners – all of them were paid, and none of them had even liked him. Tony’s sum worth was what he could build with his hands and Obie’s validation of him.

That… had stuck with him, a long time. Maybe longer than it should have, but it did.

Now, though, now he had Mark III, he had PASCLE, he had Dum-E, he had U-1, he had BT-3RFGR, he had his tools, and he was going to see the fireworks in person, dammit. He was almost _seventeen_. Most seventeen-year-old kids were planning for college. Tony could probably get a GED, pass a _GRE_ , but Obie had warned him about putting personal information out online. As of right now, the entire world thought Anthony Edward Stark was dead, and Obie told Tony to keep it that way until they were sure the person who had his parents killed in a way that everyone took for natural was found.

Of course, that wasn’t exactly the plan.

Throughout the years, Tony had designed and redesigned the dosage mechanism. As it was, he needed the antidote, lithium dioxide laced with chlorophyll and given a stabilizing agent to let it bond with his blood. To get the antidote, he couldn’t ingest it or have it injected into his vein at the elbow or at the area where his metal leg started. No, he needed to have it pumped through his body either in a constant flow – something that he had had as a child until the age of four, an IV he walked around with – or in a steady dosage. If he dosed up every hour or so, he could probably get away with injecting it in his jugular vein or in his elbow, but that meant twenty-four doses, not eight. Four hours was the longest amount of time he could go between doses before he got shaky and weak, and his heart began to beat irregularly. So he had devised a system that inserted long needles into the superior and inferior vena cava, letting the lithium dioxide, stabilizing agent, and chlorophyll mix get infused with oxygen from his lungs and carried into the bloodstream by his blood cells. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. The problem was being able to refill the device without letting others see it, without letting others damage the supply, without risking losing the supply because of a lost bag, stolen bag, or crushed bag. So. Mark III was in the works, a completely automated system that wasn’t too heavy, that worked like the barrel of an automated weapon, moving each dosage into position correctly, with a timed, automated trigger so he wouldn’t have to trigger it with a remote or with a button.

If it worked, it would give Tony thirty-six hours of precious freedom, away from the hourly dosage system he was on while he was upgrading the pump. Away from this tower, and from Obie, and from Goethe. He even had a Bluetooth that could connect him to PASCLE, so he could always have PASCLE alert Obie if something really bad happened. Granted, he hadn’t tested the range of the Bluetooth, and had to trust that nothing tampered with his signal, but it shouldn’t be that hard to keep a continuous signal between himself and the receiver in the tower.

Which is what he had been working on trying to fix before giving up and going to the generously stocked bar Obie made sure to keep refilled, and drinking himself into a coma.

 He would just have to hope that the backup system would allow PASCLE to interact with him enough, even if he wouldn’t be able to talk back. An emitter, after all, was always easier than a transmitter. But he needed to have the Mark III hooked up to his heart, with enough of the antidote stored on his body to replenish its stores as need be, and he’d need a window of opportunity. Goethe didn’t live up here with him, but he certainly lived beneath Tony, guarding the elevator ever since Obie had found out that Tony could bypass the security systems. He’d notice if the elevator went past him, which meant Tony had to find a way to get down the elevator and then out the building before Goethe contacted the building’s security and had them round up Tony.

Easier said than done, but Tony had a workable plan. He was _going_ to see these fireworks. Once the pump was in place – and it would be ready by tomorrow morning – he’d be out the tower and out in the real world and he wasn’t coming back until midnight, which easily fell under his thirty-six hour time limit. Obie would be none the wiser.

…The again, Tony hadn’t expected to have dinner with Obie tonight. Obie normally only came about two or three times a month, whenever he was having problems with the company. He also called ahead, gave Tony plenty of notice, because on these trips he’d regularly ask if Tony had another design, another improvement, another way to pull the company out of its collapse so it would be there for Tony when Obie finally found the people who killed his parents – which meant Tony pretty much had to have a design or improvement by the time Obie got there.

With a sigh, Tony ran a hand through his hair and winced when his fingers caught at a knot. Okay, he’d better go get cleaned up – Obie hated him dirty or unclean. And he’d better scrounge up some new idea, because if he didn’t have something new and Obie asked for something, it’d go worse for Tony, even if Obie _hadn’t_ given any warning.

“PASCLE, keep silent on the reminders until Obie leaves the rooms. And I’m gonna go shower; alert me when the button for this floor is pressed in the elevator?”

“Of course, sir,” PASCLE answered promptly.

Tony wandered over to the stairs that led to his bedroom and began to prepare for dinner.

***

“How are you, my boy? Still drinking, I see. You smell like a brewery. I don’t know why you insist on such a filthy habit.”

Obie was booming, loud – he was physically large, dominating the room and the space, never failing to make Tony feel small or overshadowed. It was easier for Tony to just mumble under his breath, bow to pressure and words and Obie’s cheerful disregard for anything Tony actually wanted. But today – today he felt he could try. He was seventeen. Certainly he was an adult now, ready to go to the police, figure out who wanted him dead, who had his parents killed. So he took a big breath and smiled up at Obie, consciously keeping his shoulders back and trying to meet Obie’s crushing handshake with his own. “I’m doing okay, Obie. Doing alright. You didn’t really give me any warning, but I think I have an improvement that would be interesting to the board, if you want.”

“Of course, of course my boy, anything that can keep the company’s nose up. Do we need a warning, though? I thought we were family!”

Tony wasn’t sure what the correct answer was, but he kept the smile on his face as he shrugged, trying to keep his movements easy and careless. “No, but I could’ve had a better design, or a stronger improvisation, given more time to work.”

“It’s almost as if you wish I didn’t come,” Obie said, frowning, looking super disappointed and Tony immediately rushed to reassure Obie.

“No, it’s not that – I’m always super happy to see you. Cooped up like this, I really love having you visit. Speaking of… I was really hoping that I could one day see the fireworks, you know? I think, I think maybe I’m old enough now. Maybe we could turn this over to the police, figure out who’s trying to wipe the Stark line off the globe, you know? Get this done and over with so I can stop hiding.”

Obie got a fierce, almost angry look on his face, and his frown made Tony fight to keep from trembling. “It’s as if you don’t trust me, Tony. I’m doing my best, but your old man made a lot of enemies, pissed off a lot of people, and you know the police can be bought. Going to them wouldn’t help – would only alert them that there’s someone else they need to eliminate. I thought you were smart, Tony.” He shook his head and stalked away from Tony to the dinner table, where the pre-ordered meal was waiting, set out by Goethe.

“I just – I really think if we thoroughly check into like, the police department, find the trustworthy ones, or, hell, hire a private detective, figure this out so that I can finally go somewhere other than these four walls—”

“ _Dammit_ , Tony, how many times have I told you I’m handling it?!” Obie roared, face red as he turned on Tony, shoulders squared.

Tony shrunk down, flinching away. “I’m sorry! Okay, okay, alright. I’m sorry!”

Obie stared at him, chest heaving, and then folded his arms. “Great. Now I have to play bad guy because you can’t follow simple directions. You do this _every year_ , Anthony. When will you get it through your head that you can’t just naively expect these things to just happen?”

“Sorry, Obie,” Tony said in a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“If you were truly sorry you wouldn’t do it every year.” Obie turned his back and stalked away, leaving Tony standing in the middle of the floor.

After a few deep breaths, Tony pulled himself together and followed Obie to the small dining table where the meal was already prepared. Gingerly, he sat down and kept his gaze down as Obie made small huffs of anger, muttering about Tony’s incompetence and stupidity.

Tony waited a couple of heartbeats, waiting for some period when Obie stopped grumbling, and then said quietly, “I found a way to stop that sticking problem in the tank design, the one that made it difficult to aim under a certain distance? And I have some upgrades to communicators that will keep the lines secure even when piggybacking off of satellites, so that the troops can have some more reliable communication devices. Both of them look like they’ll be a bit expensive to implement but it’ll put Stark technology leagues ahead of what’s currently on the market. It’ll make the DoD people pretty happy, I think. Jump us a few points, stock-wise.”

Obie nodded approvingly. “There, see? That’s what you should stick to doing, my boy. That’s what you’re suited for. Enough of this leaving nonsense.”

“Of course, Obie,” Tony said, subdued.

“I came here because the board’s in trouble again,” Obie said musingly. “This might not be enough to pull them out. They’re not very good at managing resources; they’re not like you, my boy, and they look for cheap options that’ll bring the most return.”

Tony bit his lip. “Well… you could always – I had that design for a cellphone, you know, based off of military tech. It’s better than anything on the market currently, and I have a few upgrades for that, even, and it’s low-cost compared to weapons—”

“You know that silly gadgets are just going to make everything worse,” Obie said disapprovingly. “Stick to what you know, boy. Stop trying to pretend you’re clever; you’re only supposed to be focused on the tanks right now. These side projects of yours are distracting you from the true work that needs to be done.”

Tony kept his words entirely civil as he said, “It’d still be a way to make quick money, if the board’s having trouble. Still, I would’ve thought the upgrades I made three or four months ago should have held us steady at least half the year, if not a full year. If I could look over the books, maybe a factory is overusing or misusing materials and messing up the numbers that badly—”

“Just stick to designing, Tony. That’s what you’re good at.”

“Yeah,” Tony sighed, staring at the table. “Okay, Obie.”

***

“Today,” Steve said firmly, staring at the glass doors, “I’m going to get up there.”

“You always say that,” Bucky sighed, “and then I end up having to post bail for you.”

Steve grinned brightly. “You just be waiting for me here. You’ll see.”

Bucky was shaking his head in resignation as Steve left the car, but Steve was getting _much_ better at lock-picking and Wanda had been teaching him how to hack electronic locks – just the basics, but still. He was sure he could get past those glass doors that led to the upper offices of Stark Industries today without getting the attention of the security guard, Rhodes. Rhodes had ejected him from this building four times now; hopefully, he wouldn’t have a fifth night cooling his heels in jail for trespassing.

The halls of Stark Industries’ high rise were familiar by now, and he strolled in casually. The security guards in the lobby didn’t even register his presence, or link him to Rhodes’ constant trespasser; the lobby area had couches, a small deli, and free wifi, so a lot of people would pass in and out. To get to a higher level, someone simply needed to enter the elevator which went up a maximum of one floor, or take the (locked) fire escape doors to the first level. The first level was the giant gateway into the actual inner workings of SI’s New York City branch, and once on that first floor, receptionists took down the name and business of all visitors. Workers, however, got in with a keycard they’d use to swipe their way into the real elevators, the ones that went to all floors of the building above the ground floor where the lobby was.

So far, he’d tried to use the fire escape, but honestly for a skinny asthmatic who was getting better and better at his endurance and stamina, but nowhere good enough to actually walk up a hundred flights of stairs, the fire escape not only had him wheezing fifteen minutes in, above the fiftieth floor, where all the labs and upper levels of SI’s employees worked, there were cameras and motion detectors.

(He knew about the motion detectors because Pietro had come with him one day to make the cameras run a loop of an empty stairwell and they’d _still_ gotten caught by Rhodes. Well, Steve had gotten caught; he’d swear Pietro was on like, steroids or something to run that fast.)

But he was pretty sure his plan would work out this time. Remy had given him a small electronic device that would blur the cameras if he needed it, and hopefully it’d get him far enough to actually try to get to one of those elevators and practice those electronic tricks Wanda had taught him. He just needed to get to an elevator without getting kicked out.

Easier said than done.

Still, the first part worked; he managed to sneak into the fire escape stairwell without setting off the alarms (he was pretty good at ordinary locks himself; he and Bucky had a less than reputable past). There weren’t motion detectors down here – or cameras, he was hoping, but he had Remy’s device anyway – and so he made his careful way up to the fifteenth floor. He was hoping the fifteenth floor would be high up enough to get him to the elevators that would actually get him to the top, but not high enough to get trip the really sensitive, security-laden features of higher floors. At the fifteenth door, he leaned down on the floor and watched the crack underneath the door. Feet walked past every so often, and he tried to figure out where he’d come out. It looked like this might be an office; he could see the legs of desks, chairs, people sitting – but no walls. If he opened the door, he couldn’t guarantee he’d immediately be the center of attention from every worker.

“So,” he murmured to himself, lightly tapping a finger against the floor, cheek going numb from the cool concrete. “Go one floor up, or one floor down?”

After a couple more moments of staring, he stood up and brushed off his khakis and button-down shirt. He’d go up one more floor, and then another, until he could guarantee he could step out of the fire escape door without anyone taking exception.

At the eighteenth floor, he got lucky. There were feet walking in the distance, but nothing nearby, and there was a wall of some type that looked like the fire escape was down a corridor. Not easily seen, unless someone was standing at the end of the corridor. He kept his cheek pressed against the floor, trying to gauge any type of rhythm to why people walked past the corridor, when his ass vibrated and nearly sent him four feet off the floor.

Huffing under his breath, he pulled out his phone and glanced at the message.

_Been there for almost thirty minutes; you ready to come back yet? We could still keep today a jail-free day_

He rolled his eyes at Bucky’s dramatics and texted back a quick _Found an entrance; I’m going in_ before sliding it back into his pocket and leaning down.

Fuck it. He was just going to crack the door and glance around.

The door, like all fire escape doors, opened into the stairwell, which made it a little difficult to crack open and look around, but in his line of vision he can’t see anything. All that he could see was a white hallway, nothing on the wall, and boring carpet. Hesitantly, he cracked the door a little wider open, poked his head around.

Shit. The hallway wasn’t really a hallway; the second wall was some weird, half-wall thing with glass panes above like windows. If he stepped out, everyone sitting at their desks could see him; he had to hope that no one—

“Hey, what’re you doing there?”

 _Fuckshit motherfucker_.

Steve jerked nervously, turned to see a woman dressed professionally walking down the corridor to him, and he tried not to panic. “I, uh—”

“You jury-rig the fire alarm so it won’t go off?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “What’re you doing here?”

“I, well, you see—”

His phone vibrated and he looked at it with something akin to panic before looking back at her.

Her eyes had softened, though. “Look, if you needed to step out to take a personal phone call, there are better places than the fire escape. Is something the matter? Do you need to go home early?”

“No – no ma’am, I just – I just needed to speak with him really quick. I’m really sorry.” He grasped at the excuse desperately. “It won’t happen again.”

“I get that some calls you don’t want to make in front of others, but it’s really important _not_ to break into the fire alarm system, because then I have Rhodes on my ass because security can be compromised.” She paused, and then squinted at him. “I don’t remember you. I don’t think you’re on my team.”

“No – no ma’am, I’m from – a lower floor. I just was pacing and decided to come in here, and take the elevator down.” He smiled weakly. “I think I walked like five flights of stairs and my legs are killing me.”

She sighed. “Well, I’ll tell Rhodes that I found the glitch he’s been hollering about. Next time, just head down to the lobby.”

“Thank you ma’am. I’m sorry.”

She muttered something under her breath about interns and then stalked away.

Heaving an internal sigh of relief, he closed the fire escape door behind him and made his way to the elevators. He just needed one that would take him all the way to the top; he pulled out his phone, made motions of pretending to text Bucky back (the text read _you dumbshit are gonna get us BOTH in trouble on your own fucking birthday_ and he made a face at it) even as he eyed up the elevators, the level of traffic behind him.

Then he moved to the most important looking one and pressed the call button for a higher floor.

He stood there, waiting, trying not to get too nervous, hoping that the multiple security cameras weren’t picking him up, hoping that no one wondered why he wasn’t getting into any of the other elevators.

There was a ding, and then Security Officer James Rhodes stepped out of the elevator farthest from Steve, turning towards the larger office. Steve tried to make himself shrink and stepped closer to the elevator, reaching over and trying to discreetly press the call button multiple times.

A deep hum came from the elevator, even as Rhodes tilted his head, sweeping his eyes over the office, and just as the doors opened, Rhodes turned around.

His eyes immediately zeroed in on Steve.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Steve whispered to himself, practically leaping into the elevator and stabbing the buttons closed. He didn’t even care anymore, he pressed the highest available button, and if he ended up on the wrong floor who the fuck cares, he could figure out how to get _away_ as long as the fucking doors _closed_ before Rhodes got to them—

The doors slid shut inch by slow inch as Rhodes dashed forward, trying to reach Steve before the doors got Steve to safety, and Steve watched as if in slow motion as the doors closed the final inch almost on top of Rhodes’ fingers.

“Oh my god,” he whispered again, and sagged against the back wall of the elevator. Glancing over at the buttons, he blinked and then began to grin from ear to ear.

The topmost button that he’d pressed was labeled “PNTH.”

The ride itself was _forever_ , and Steve froze at every floor they passed where it slowed down, nervous and anxious that someone was going to get on, someone was going to _stop_ the elevator and haul him out for trespassing (again), something was going to go _wrong_ —

The doors opened out to a floor that had a living room and a bar, and Steve grinned, wide and happy.

“Al-fucking- _right_!” he crowed, stepping into the room.

And then something heavy hit him in the head and he crumpled to the floor.

***

Steve blinked open his eyes to find that he was tied with electrical wiring to a chair. Bemused, he stared at it, uncomprehendingly, and then noise jerked his head upright and he stared as a teenage boy walked forward, brandishing a wrench and stepping forward gingerly.

“You’re not Stane. What the hell?” he said, confused.

“I think that’s more _my_ line,” the kid said back, but he was trembling, scrawny and stick-thin. Steve could sympathize – he was easily half the weight of Bucky and definitely wouldn’t win any type of muscle contests – but what really worried him was the kid’s weird gait, as if he was limping and in pain. Something glowed faintly underneath the black t-shirt the kid wore over sweats and grease-stained socks. Glancing around the room, Steve saw a lot of electronics, a lot of broken shit and grease stains and even what looked to be powder residue from an explosion and he wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

“I don’t know how you got in, unless you’re better at hacking than you look—” the kid continued, ignoring Steve’s startled “Hey!” “—but I can bet you’re not here for something strictly legal. If you were, I’m sure you would have knocked first.”

Steve decided to be charming – he still needed damning information on Stane, and if Stane was keeping this… rentboy? Hostage? Son? Housekeeper?—keeping this whatever-he-was up here, he’d need to get into this guy’s good graces so that he could successfully snoop around. “Maybe I did try, and you just didn’t hear me,” he tried slyly, smiling crookedly and making his blue eyes as wide as he could make them.

The boy lifted one eye-brow. “Uh- _huh_ ,” he said slowly. “Well, then, let me call Obie since you were obviously looking for him.”

Steve frowned. “You know Stane?” he asked incredulously.

With exaggerated motions, the kid looked around the room. “Well, since I appear to be living here, I suppose I do,” he said sarcastically. “You always this dumb, or is it because you were out for almost two hours?”

“Two hours?!” Steve repeated, thinking in horror about Bucky waiting in a car all this time. Hell, Rhodes had chased him through the hallway; how someone hadn’t come to cart Steve away, Steve had no idea.

At Steve’s remark, though, the kid’s dark complexion colored a little. “Yeah,” he said, coughing a little. “It was really – I – you surprised me.”

“So you hit me with a, a wrench?” Steve asked.

Gathering himself, the kid pointed an accusing finger at him. “Look, you’re in my space, and I bet you’d rather I _not_ call the security to come up and grab you. So why don’t you just explain what you’re doing here. I ask the questions, not you. You’re my prisoner.”

Steve looked around the room a moment more until he located his camera, sitting on the arm of a couch perpendicular to him. He needed to get to it, get some photographs of this kid – he looked really familiar, now that he thought about it, but he couldn’t place the face exactly – and maybe if the kid was distracted Steve could wiggle free. Twisting a little in the bindings, he replied, “Honestly, though, I didn’t expect anyone to be living up here. This is Stane’s personal floor when he’s in New York, and he visits here regularly. This past visit, though, has been entirely _ir_ regular, and I was curious as to why.”

“Why are you curious about what Stane does?” the kid asked, and then added, “Also, you should maybe not try to get free. I’ll have PASCLE electrocute you if you try.”

Steve froze. “Pascal?”

“My computer. Say hi, PASCLE.”

“Good morning, sir. Facial recognition scan places you as Steven Rogers, amateur photographer and blog author for a local magazine. Close acquaintances include Arthur Olden, James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner. Birthdate—”

“Thank you, that’s enough, computer!” Steve said desperately.

The damage was done, though – the kid was already moving to the camera, humming to himself. “So,” he said slowly, “you came up here—”

“By _accident_ ,” Steve said immediately.

Lifting a brow, the kid ignored him to say, “—and decided you’d, what, steal secrets from Obie? Steal reports? What exactly are you looking for?”

“Proof that Stane is double-dealing. He’s selling to everyone who has the money, and so many SI designs end up on the black market it’s hardly worth it for them to make any kind of profit, when weeks after a new upgrade or design it becomes publically available.”

The kid frowned, narrowing his eyes at the air. “PASCLE, verify the statement, please.”

For a moment, there was no sound at all, and then a slight hum preceded the computer’s voice. “Current headlines involving Stane heavily imply that Stane is looking to become sole CEO of Stark Industries. The government has implied that Stark Industries is close to losing Defense Department contracts if they cannot maintain stricter secrecy standards. Stane is in New York for a very important pre-meeting before flying to Washington, D.C., and speaking before a committee on the potential security leaks and solutions. Stane has expressed little to no remorse for lost designs to newspapers as of—”

“Thanks, PASCLE,” the kid said, and he sounded – old. Tired. Steve watched the kid slump against the couch before the kid shook his head and stood upright again. “So I better figure out what to do with my life before Stane drives the company into the ground. But that’s a problem for another day.”

Steve watched the kid pace, realizing the kid had bedding in a corner, an Xbox, bookcases, even some plates and cups scattered around the room.

This kid must live here. Which begged the question – who _was_ he? Why would Obadiah Stane _keep_ a kid here, one no one knew he had? Was it an illegitimate child? No – couldn’t be, because Stane wouldn’t keep such a kid, would just ignore the woman. Maybe a legitimate child? No – Stane had a wife, and was childless. Unless this was a child from a previous marriage?

“So I think I should ask what you’re doing here but you explained, and I can guess from the camera and PASCLE’s identification process. You’re here to dig up dirt on Obie, and by all rights I should call security up here, or at least dump you in the elevator and send you down. How you got up here is beyond me, but in any case… you shouldn’t be here.” The kid leaned forward in Steve’s space, narrowing his eyes. “So instead the question is… do I get you thrown in jail, or do I help you?”

That threw Steve for a loop. “Help me?” he asked, confused.

The kid stepped away, pacing again, and it looked painful to Steve but then the kid gestured wildly with the wrench as he said, “Look, these four walls are great but I don’t think I can handle living here anymore. I mean, it’s just – it’s just fourth of July fireworks, how bad could it be? I’d be out and then back again, Goethe would never know, Obie would never know. I can stay away from the tower that long. I designed the system; I know I can.”

“I… think you lost me here,” Steve said slowly.

“And then _you_ , you come tripping out of the elevator, on the very personal and private elevator, and on the heels of being told not to go, and I’m not a religious person but even I can tell a sign when it hits me in the face.”

“ _I’m_ the one who got hit in the face,” Steve pointed out. “And I’m still not following.”

Scowling at him, the kid folded his arms. “ _You_ will escort me to the fireworks tonight.”

That took Steve back. “Really?” he said, drawing the word out. “Me? Someone who – broke into your space, you’re going to trust as an escort to _anywhere_? Why should I?”

“Because if you _do_ , I don’t break your camera. I let you into Obie’s work space for ten minutes. You don’t take any pictures of me, or the living space, but you get ten minutes unrestricted access to his study. Seem fair?”

That was the type of story that would make Steve’s career. He gnawed on his lip, considering his options. Escorting a kid around NYC until the fireworks wasn’t his idea of a good time, but he had off today and knew most staff and companies did as well, which is why he had tried today of all days to get in the tower.

“So… I take you to the fireworks and then bring you home, and that’s it? You give me my camera back and I get free reign in Stane’s stuff?” Steve clarified.

The kid opened his mouth and then frowned. Glancing over at the camera, he squinted at it and muttered under his breath. Finally, he said aloud, “PASCLE, the Mark III is complete, yeah? How long will it take to get it in place?”

“No more than an hour, sir. Less if you decide to utilize your hostage.”

“Hey!” Steve said indignantly.

The kid looked at him disdainfully. “Nah, I think he’ll keep there. He’s pretty scrawny; the electrical wires will hold him. And just in case you get any funny ideas, PASCLE can split his processing power easily to run observation on you _and_ run Dummy and Butterfingers as they hook me up to the Mark III. I’ll be back in an hour, give or take, and then we’re going to leave together so I know you don’t try and welsh on the deal.”

Steve scowled as the kid walked over to a secondary elevator and took it down two floors. After a few moments, he began to try and work at the tight ties that kept his wrists to the arms of the chair.

“I really wouldn’t, Mr. Rogers. I am under orders to give you a mild electrical shock should you continue to fiddle with the wiring.”

Steve sighed and stared up at the ceiling. “A computer, huh?”

“Correct, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve winced. “Call me Steve, _please_. Mr. Rogers is – well. Just call me Steve.”

“As you wish, Mr. Steve.”

With a frustrated sigh, Steve threw his head back against the headrest and bit his lip. Bucky would be furious. Hell, he might even be in jail if he’d come in after Steve and made a big enough nuisance of himself. Steve _always_ seemed to be getting Bucky in trouble and he always felt bad about it – after it happened. “Why are you called Pascal, anyway?”

“It is an acronym, Mr. Steve. It stands for my unit designation that sir named me. I am a Personal Assistant, a Security Console, and a Laborious Entity.”

Steve found himself chuckling. “A laborious entity, huh?”

“But of course, sir. My coding and programming took over four months to complete, two more months to consolidate, and various iterations before gaining success. Young sir had a difficult time of it, but he is nothing if not persistent.”

“Great,” Steve sighed. “Perfect.”

He must have dozed off at some point, because there was a snapping noise and he jerked upright to see the kid squinting at him skeptically, leaning right in his face. “What?” Steve asked defensively. “What’re you doing?”

“We’re leaving. It’s like, four in the afternoon. Dark happens at eight-thirty.”

Steve frowned and almost asked why this kid wanted to leave four and a half hours early to watch the fireworks – but he’d entered the building around twelve-thirty and Bucky had been waiting. There wasn’t any clock to verify the kid’s time-keeping skills, but he sincerely hoped it was _not_ four in the afternoon, because if that was true Bucky most likely was in jail. Instead of risking the kid staying put and keeping Steve tied up with him until fireworks time, he moved his arms slightly and said, “You gotta untie me if you want me to leave, you know.”

The kid sighed. “One wrong move and I—”

“Hit me with that wrench you have in your pocket, yes, I see it,” Steve drawled, rolling his eyes. “Let’s get on with it, please.”

Gnawing on his lip, the kid gingerly undid the electrical wires, fingers callused and rough against Steve’s skin – the few times he touched. Truthfully, the kid kept shying away from actually touching Steve and it was becoming a little bit of a slow-down.

Finally Steve growled, “Look, my skin certainly isn’t going to electrocute you. You can touch it and I won’t die.”

The kid flushed and jerked away, then scowled at Steve. As if to prove something, he gripped Steve’s wrist and roughly undid the last knots holding Steve’s arms down, then went down to Steve’s ankles as Steve flexed his wrists and winced at the red marks. “Geez, kid. I don’t know what your problem is, but this is going to be a long four hours if it goes like this the whole time. You have a name?”

“Tony,” the kid said, and then froze.

Squinting at the weird behavior, Steve sighed. “Yeah, okay Tony. You got any idea how to get down to the bottom floor from here?”

After a few seconds, the kid slowly unfroze and then made his way over to the elevator. “Same way you came in, only in reverse.”

“Yeah, no good, kid. All the elevators will end up on the first floor of the office building, where I’m _sure_ Rhodes is waiting for me.”

“Rhodes?” the kid asked quizzically.

“Rhodes, Officer Rhodes – the head security officer here at Stark Industries. He’s stopped me every single time I ever tried to get this high. Come to think of it, I’m still not entirely sure why he didn’t stop me _this_ time by like emergency-stopping the elevator, but he knows I’m in the building and he’ll be waiting for me.” Steve rubbed his chin and took a few steps to get feeling back in his feet and thighs.

For a moment, the kid watched him. “This officer – will stop us?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed.

“Okay. PASCLE, locate Officer Rhodes?”

“Whoa, what? Why?” Steve asked.

“You’ll see,” the kid said, smirking.

“Officer James Rhodes is on the 25th floor, within his office.”

The kid nodded decisively. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

***

“I can’t believe that worked,” Steve said disbelievingly as they took the elevator down to the lobby.

The kid looked at him strangely. “Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because – you just _asked_ him for something and he did it? He didn’t – call the cops on me, or anything?”

Rolling his eyes expressively, the kid adjusted the earpiece in his right ear. “You up, PASCLE?”

There was a tinny response – presumably the uplink to the computer system was working – and Steve glanced over to where Bucky had parked earlier. Groaning under his breath when he saw the car was gone, he groped in his back pocket and pulled out his iPhone. “Yep,” he muttered under his breath, seeing the nine missed calls from Bucky. “I’m in trouble.”

“You are?” the kid – he should probably start referring to the kid as Tony – asked in surprise. “Why?”

“Because I had a friend waiting for me, that’s why, and he’s gone now. I hope he didn’t get in trouble…” Trailing off, Steve pressed Bucky’s name and bit his lip.

Almost immediately, the line picked up and Bucky was shouting curses at him. The kid – _Tony_ – looked startled, even as Steve winced and held the phone a little ways away from his ear.

“—go _looking for you_ in this gods-curst place for _hours_ and Rhodes has given me _nothing_ but a fucking _runaround_ _when I get my hands on you you little twerp I swear_ —”

Steve waited for Bucky to take a breath before saying, “Look, Buck, I get it, I do, but something… unforeseen happened, and I—”

“ _UnforeSEEN?_ ” Bucky demanded and Steve let out an exasperated sigh. He turned to say something to Tony and stopped.

Tony looked terrified, eyes wide. “Is he – is it very bad?” he asked quietly.

“Um – no, Bucky’s just fulla hot air—”

“ _FUCK you you slippery BAStard I’m gonna string you up by your fucking scrawny neck—”_

Steve gingerly patted Tony’s shoulder, a little worried with how tense it was. “Honestly, it’s okay. Hey, Buck, we got a passenger. Where are you right now?”

There was more unintelligible cursing and shouting and Steve finally let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, Buck, we’re out where you were parked, okay? I don’t know where you went, but if you can’t come back to us we’ll just walk back to the office. Do I need to post bail for _you_?”

“ _FUCK YOU_.”

“Yeah, okay, we’re gonna walk, Buck.” Steve hung up and shoved the phone into his back pocket. “C’mon. I don’t know how much it hurts you to walk, but it’s about a ten minute walk from here. Think you can handle it?”

The kid – Tony – looked affronted. “Why wouldn’t I?” he demanded.

“Look, even I could see you’ve got a weak leg, and that was just when you were threatening me inside a building. This is a lot different than pacing a room.” Steve shrugged and began walking down the sidewalk. “Let me know if you need breaks or something, yeah?”

“I’m fine,” the – _Tony_ – grumbled, falling in step behind Steve.

Just a few minutes later, Steve was trying not to make it obvious Tony was worrying him. The kid was breathing hard, his head down as if he was pushing his way through whatever pain he was feeling. Steve wasn’t sure what was wrong with the kid’s leg, but he was the last person to judge about physical features making things difficult for someone. “Look, kid, let’s take a stop here – there’s these benches here. I gotta few questions for you anyway.”

Breathing heavily, the kid just nodded and gratefully sank down, massaging his chest. “Hey, P, what’s – my vitals reading?”

More tinny words that Steve couldn’t make out very well, and then Tony’s head dropped below his shoulders. Hesitantly, Steve put a hand on Tony’s back and rubbed lightly. “Hey, kid. You’re doing pretty great. You, uh. You’ve never walked much, have you?”

Tony shook his head weakly. “Never.”

Steve paused and considered the tone of that answer. He’d been half-joking, thinking more that this kid had had so much luxury that walking must have been practically nonexistent, but the kid… something in his voice gave him pause.

After a few moments of gently making circles against the trembling shoulders, he asked tentatively, “So, how long have you been at Stark Industries’ tower?”

“My whole life,” the kid – Tony – sighed. “I think maybe when I was a little kid, I didn’t, but I know from when I was four I was there, so.”

Frowning, Steve pressed, “Did you have anyone around you? In the tower?”

“Of course I did,” the kid scoffed, shoulders stiffening a little. “I had some nannies and tutors, and of course Obie. Obie’s friend, Goethe.”

He wasn’t quite sure how to put the question without making the kid get defensive again, so instead he glanced down the street, where the offices for Shield Publications were. He had thought this would only take them ten minutes, but at this rate it may take them closer to half an hour – they’d barely gone three blocks. “Well, did you have any – friends? People your age?”

“Obie didn’t know people my age. And kids are stupid. Adults are more on my level – sometimes,” Tony said dismissively. “Even then they’re not always smart. And they definitely don’t like talking to me, so.” He shrugged his shoulders and took another deep breath in.

“Who do you talk to, then?” Steve asked curiously.

Tony hitched a shoulder. “PASCLE. Dummy. Butterfingers. Sometimes Goethe, but man I hate talking with him. And Obie comes whenever he’s in town, but he’s pretty busy all the time.”

“What does he do?”

Tony slanted an unimpressed look at him. “Run Stark Industries. I’ve got access to the internet, I can figure these things out you know.”

“I’m just curious as to why you wouldn’t know about the suspicions about Stark Industries’ weapons, especially if you _do_ have access to the internet.”

Uncomfortable, Tony shrugged, tension back in his shoulders. “Never looked. Obie handles that stuff. I just design things. I dick around the internet. I watch stupid shit. I get another college degree. Like, why would I look at the news headlines? I’m too busy searching for—”

The kid cut off, and Steve cocked his head with interest. “Searching for?”

“Something,” the kid said testily, standing up, face tightening with pain. “We going to wherever or not?”

With a sigh, Steve stood up and gestured further down the street. “It’s really not that far. C’mon, I guess I can buy you a hot dog from one of the food carts. It’s the fourth, after all.”

***

Steve took Tony to some building where apparently he worked. It wasn’t exactly a great building – it looked pretty brown and plain, honestly – and Tony was just more thankful that they were sitting than really impressed with the scenery. He had forgotten how much _walking_ was involved in the outside world; he rarely moved around in his workspace, focused on one project or the other, never really going anywhere. The extent of his movement was focused on going from point A to point B and that rarely involved more than a couple of steps. Maybe more than a few steps, but it was short points, short distances.

 _Really_ short distances.

So he had a hot dog in his hand from a cart, a bottle of soda in his other hand, sitting in a chair and focused on just breathing, honestly, as Steve chatted with his friends. He looked sheepish as they chastised him for something; Tony honestly couldn’t quite make out everything that was being said around him. He knew he’d been there for a few minutes, feeling the dizziness and pain, and everyone was ignoring him as he sat down at the desk marked as Steve’s and tried to breathe in and out.

There came a clicking noise, and then a sharp pinch as his dosage dispensed into his bloodstream. Tony let out a small shudder, feeling his brain slowly start to clear up from the poison. He’d need to piss it out; the antidote worked to counteract the poison, but then deposited it in his kidneys. It couldn’t sit there long before making him ill again, so…

“You got a bathroom somewhere?” he asked, interrupting the chatter around him.

Steve looked up. “Oh, sorry, Tony. Um – yeah, see that door by the water fountain?”

Nodding, Tony stood up and made his slow way towards the door. He had never realized just how much his prosthetic weighed, or how much lung capacity and muscle strength was necessary to walk more than the distance between the couch and the workshop. He was still wobbly from the walk to this office and was thankful he reached the bathroom without collapsing in an embarrassed heap.

The bathroom was not exactly how he’d expected it – it was both cleaner than movies made public bathrooms out to be, and smaller. Grumbling under his breath, he went into one of the stalls so that the wires and metal bits couldn’t be seen by anyone casually walking in and went as quickly as he could.

Coming out of the rest room, he murmured under his breath, “PASCLE, you there?”

“For you, young sir, of course.”

“How’re my vitals? How’s… everything?”

“Your vitals have reached an acceptable baseline.”

Tony frowned, standing by the water fountain and watching Steve casually interact with his coworkers. “Acceptable baseline?”

“Your heart rate and hormone levels are higher than normal but not in a dangerous manner. I have factored in the environment and calculate an 84.7% possibility that the increased physical activity is the root cause of your changed baseline. Further observations are necessary to confirm my hypothesis.” There was a pause, and then PASCLE continued, “Goethe has been in the penthouse since you have left and is aware that you are not present. He has left the penthouse, indicating that he is looking for you. I would be aware of his possible presence as he tracks you down.”

Tony nodded, gnawing on his bottom lip, before making his way back to where he’d been sitting next to Steve’s desk.

“—just walked into the man’s office!”

“That’s what you needed to do, Rogers,” a big man, broad-shouldered with blond locks brushing his shoulders. Grinning, he pounded Steve’s back and Tony winced at the interaction. Was that how people really interacted in the real world?

“Hey, here’s the brave little guy!” One of the females hopped up on to the desk opposite Steve’s, a desk labeled as ‘Barton.’ “Steve says you rescued him from Rhodes. I think we should, like, buy you a drink just for that, but you look like you’re twelve.”

“I’m seventeen!” Tony replied hotly.

Before he could say any more, Steve interrupted the two of them. “Hey, Darcy, leave him alone. Tony, that’s Darcy, and this guy here—” he jerked a thumb at the really big guy, “—is Arthur. Bruce is that guy over there—” Now, he pointed diagonal to himself, where a curly-haired, rumpled man sat at a desk labeled ‘Banner.’

Tony did his best to file away the rest of the names – Sam, Johnny, Clint (as in, the guy whose desk Tony was at, but when Tony moved to stand the stocky blond waved dismissively, perched on a different desk), Natasha (her desk was the one Clint was on), Jane, Janet, and Carol – but he’d never met so many people in his life and it was definitely becoming very overwhelming to try and hold on to the conversation of these ten different people. Particularly when the door that led to the stairwell was flung open and another big guy, this one dark-haired and one-armed, stormed inside.

“And that’s James,” Steve said weakly, even as the man stomped over to Steve’s desk.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing? Huh? Disappearing for _hours_ – I thought Stane had had you dropped into jail and left there to rot! You think that can’t happen in America? You think it doesn’t happen somewhere in the world every _day_?” James demanded.

“Bucky, it’s okay. I’m fine. Tony here was… surprised to see me, and it took a while to get everything sorted out,” Steve said, practically tripping over his words to explain.

Tony was not happy that this much larger man than himself rounded on him. “And _you_? What the hell are you even doing here?! Who the hell are you?”

Steve stood up, putting his hands out, trying to placate James. “We’re okay, James. It was just – a bit of a misunderstanding. But I got in! I got all the way up to the penthouse—”

“So why is _he_ here?” the man demanded, taking another step towards Tony, and Tony pushed back from the table, the rolling chair squeaking as he moved.

“Stop it!” One of the guys, Tony couldn’t remember his name (not Clint – Tony had remembered Clint’s name), stepped forward. “Look, Bucky, you’re pissed, and it wasn’t great of Steve to keep you out of the loop, but he hadn’t even explained it to us yet. Just – sit down, man.”

James glowered at Tony a moment longer before turning back to Steve and folding his arms. “What. Happened,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Well, okay, so I _did_ almost get caught, but managed to get into an elevator and press the button for the penthouse before Office Rhodes got to me. And then I just – went up.” Steve shrugged, and began to tell the tale of walking out of the elevator and getting knocked unconscious – James turned to literally snarl at Tony at that point – and was continuing his story when Tony decided he didn’t want to be around people anymore, especially not people who were angry at him, and quietly got out of the chair and backed up towards the door. He was out, and hell, Steve didn’t actually _have_ to show him the fireworks until later that night. He could… sit outside or something, at least until dark. And it meant that Steve wouldn’t have to try to include him in conversations, people wouldn’t try to include him in conversations in general, and that James would stop looming over him and making Tony super nervous.

As he backed away, he murmured under his breath, “PASCLE, how did Steve get up in that elevator without the appropriate keycode and without the security office stopping the car from traveling all the way up?”

For a moment, there was no noise, and then PASCLE said in his dry, emotionless voice, “You had expressed a desire to see the fireworks, and I regularly monitor the whole building, not just the penthouse, sir. Mr. Steve’s entrance into the elevator was the perfect opportunity to allow you your desire without alerting Mr. Stane’s security measures.”

“Security measures?” Tony repeated, quietly opening the door and turning the corner, leaving the little office of the SHIELD.

“Of course, sir. Mr. Stane has made it quite impossible for your biometrics to enter the elevator without setting off an alarm – unless there is a second person in the elevator with you. Unfortunately, Mr. Stane did not specify the biometrics of the second person, and so there was no way to alert him that you had left the premises.”

Tony found his mouth curving into a smile. “Thanks, PASCLE.”

“Anything for you, sir.”

Slowly making his way down the single flight of stairs, Tony stared at the main doors that would let him out onto the street and then glanced around the building’s lobby. He was not, in fact, looking forward to be outside where the air smelled and so many people walked and talked and yelled and cars made noises…

Okay, and yeah, the sky and the tall buildings and just so much _stuff_ was also a problem.

So he moved to a small bench and sat down awkwardly, taking in calming breaths as he stared at the people walking past the doors. There were so _many_ , so much color and clothing and hair colors, so many differences. It was breathtaking and Tony wished he could see this every single day, be out and around all of this all the time – and, at the same time, he viciously and deeply missed his home, the walls and furniture he was familiar with, the steady simplicity he had grown up with all his life.

“There’s a lot of stuff in the world, PASCLE,” he murmured.

“The internet certainly implies so,” PASCLE responded, the tinny voice comforting and so very far away.

Someone sat down next to Tony, and he turned to see one of the people Steve had tried to introduce to him up in the offices. “Talking to yourself?” the girl asked.

Tony bit his lip and didn’t reply.

“So the big question is, of course, who you are. Who would be living in Obadiah Stane’s penthouse? His wife is childless, so maybe you’re an illegitimate child. Or maybe you’re an adopted child. But then why not tell the press about you? No, maybe you’re a lover? But that doesn’t make sense either, not if Steve’s right and you’d been in that penthouse for years without ever leaving it. Which, man, you’re lucky that people get vaccinated. I’m surprised you’re not sick right now. All the germs in the air?”

“Who are you?” he croaked.

She grinned, blond hair falling over her shoulder. “Carol, Carol Danvers. I’m one of the lead reporters on this paper – Steve’s mostly stuck doing soft, fluff pieces. Fury doesn’t like giving him real news pieces because Steve has this way of writing that gets very self-righteous and is absolutely one-hundred percent biased. Like, you can think a politician’s a dickwad, but you can’t say _or_ imply it when you write a story, ya’know?” Gently, she bumped her shoulder against Tony’s. “So what’re you doing here? I think that’s also a fair question, and one with more chance of being answered than who you are, since obviously that’s the big mystery you can’t reveal… Or won’t. Same difference, in the end.”

Tony, caught a little off-guard by the deluge of words and information, stuttered out, “I – I wanted t-to see the fireworks tonight. Really s-see them, not just see them f-from my window.”

Carol nodded, her face going serious. “That doesn’t sound too bad. I have to ask, though – how old are you?”

“Why?” Tony said, aware that his voice was coming off hostile and angry and immediately worried about how she’d react.

But she didn’t do anything except shrug. “I’m just worried that you are like, an illegitimate child _and_ a minor, so technically Steve could be charged with kidnapping, but I’m not going to make you tell me anything you don’t want to. That doesn’t mean I can’t ask, just that I’m not gonna push.” She leaned back on the bench, folding arms behind her head. “So, why are you down _here_ and not up in the office?”

“Everyone seemed busy enough,” Tony muttered, looking away. “And the fireworks aren’t for a while. So I thought I could wait here.”

She looked like she was going to respond, but then two people walked through the doors, chatting with one another. When the first woman, a redhead, caught sight of Carol, she walked over and smiled. “Hello, Carol. I didn’t expect to see you here. Doesn’t everyone have off today?”

“Are you kidding? Our profession is a dying field. We don’t get days off.” Carol paused, then hitched a shoulder. “Plus, we all heard that Steve was gonna make a try for Stark Tower again, and we kinda all hung out expecting to need to pay bail for him. Again.”

“Oh,” the woman said weakly, but before she could continue, the other woman, also a redhead but a deeper red, nodded her head at Tony.

“Who’s this?” she asked, and the second redhead had a faint foreign accent, her eyes piercing and a little terrifying.

Carol leaned forward, patting Tony’s shoulder – making him flinch a little – and smiling up at them. “Pepper, Wanda, this is Tony. Tony, this is Pepper, a legal assistant at a big, prominent company I can never remember the name of, and Wanda is our financials manager. She and Natasha are the right hands of SHIELD.”

The second woman – Wanda – blushed slightly, even as Pepper put her hand out to Tony. “Nice to meet you, Tony. I’m Pepper Potts. Are you… related to Carol in some way?”

“No!” he said, surprised, and then cleared his throat. “No, I – I know Steve. He brought me here.”

“Which is code for ‘Steve managed to get into Stark Tower and came out with this kid in tow,’” Carol said cheerfully.

The lighter-haired woman, Pepper, opened her mouth to say something, but the darker-haired one, Wanda, said abruptly, “So if Steve is not in fact in jail, where is he? And why are you two here?”

“He’s upstairs. Fury’s sure to come around at some point and kick us all out since we’re not exactly supposed to be working, and we _may_ possibly be bothering the support staff that’s running the paper today.” Carol casually threw her arm around Tony’s shoulders, and he flinched again, jerking. “My friend here wanted to people-watch, especially since Artie’s up there, back from assignment, and can’t seem to control his fucking volume.”

Pepper was staring hard at Tony, which was making him really uncomfortable, but then he chanced to look out the doors again and froze.

That was Goethe. The back of him, but that was him.

“Why don’t we head back up anyway?” he said, standing and immediately turning on his heel.

“Whoa, hold on little buddy! Where are you going?” Carol said, bouncing up by him, tentatively reaching out for him and then pulling her hand back. He was thankful at that – he was not used to so much _casual_ contact. It was really starting to freak him out.

After a few steps, Pepper and Wanda came up beside them. “Where are you going?”

“Back upstairs. Gonna find Steve. I’m bored.” Tony took a breath and tried to regulate the spasms in his muscles.

“You don’t look that well,” Wanda said. “You sick or something?”

Tony gritted his teeth and forced himself up the rest of the stairs, ignoring the fact that the three of them hovered around him like helicopters.

(It helped that they blocked the view of him from the doors.)

When the walked in, Steve’s eyes immediately zoned in on him and he let out a sigh. “Oh, thank god. I was worried about you!”

“You gotta tell us everything. Steve leaves things out of his stories _all_ the time,” Clint said, shoving a chair out. The distance between Tony and that chair seemed massive, and he bit the inside of his cheek and stood still, muscles shaking.

Without waiting for him, Carol maneuvered past him into the room and then snagged a rolling chair and brought it over to him. “Sit,” she ordered, and Tony was too surprised to do anything other than sit down in the chair. Once he was sitting, she wheeled him back over and then looked at him very seriously. “Are you ill?”

“Umm…” Tony managed, leaning back a little in the chair and trying not to blink. “Yes?”

Carol nodded solemnly and leaned back. The rest of the people in the office suddenly got really solemn.

“What? What’s the problem?” Tony asked, holding his arms closer to his body and looking around at all of the people staring at him.

“It’s cool, dude, Steve’s got chronic illnesses too. His asthma is ridiculous in the spring,” one of the girls drawled. “That’s fine. Makes it hard to walk? I wondered why it took Steve longer than Bucky to make it back to the offices when the parking’s horrendous and Steve’s been walking these streets for years. And the SI building is not that far away.”

Steve sat down with a sigh. “Yeah, it sucks. I didn’t know you were ill, though – I definitely wouldn’t have tried to walk that fast.”

“What illness is it?” one of the guys asked, leaning forward.

Tony waffled. He _was_ sick, and it was _kinda_ related to walking, but was he really… ill in that way? “I… I’m not, not _super_ sick. I just – lived. In a place. That didn’t have a lot of walking space.” He bit his tongue and shrugged a little. “I – didn’t expect Steve to appear out of the elevator. I didn’t plan… this. I didn’t expect to do anything… ever. I’ve already had more exercise today than I normally have in, like, a year.” He dropped his gaze and stared at his knees, picking at the edge of his shirt. “I just wanted to see the fireworks tonight.”

“So you’re not sick?” another guy – no, no, this was James, the one-armed dude who yelled – asked.

Sinking down lower in his chair, Tony muttered, “Not – not really I guess but I just – have – you know I don’t want to—”

“Leave the poor kid alone, Bucky,” another guy said. “Look, _I_ didn’t catch the kid’s name. Do you know ours? We should really introduce ourselves, since we didn’t get to.”

Tony opened his mouth to say he didn’t need that, really – he was only here to see the fireworks and then he’d be going back to Stark Tower and Obie – but the girl next to Clint nodded decisively. “I’ll go first. Hi, I’m Darcy, I’m an intern with these losers for extra credit at my college. Carol’s the one who dragged you over here; she’s our editor. Behind you is Wanda, and she pays all of us. Except me. I’m an intern and don’t get paid.”

“You knew this was an unpaid internship when you signed up, Evans,” a voice barked out from behind Tony, causing him to tense up and try to face the person who was angry.

There was a tall, bald black man standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back and scowling at all of them. Tony could feel everyone in the room take a collective step back and everyone near him began looking at their feet. Anxiety began to crawl at the back of Tony’s throat as he met the one-eyed gaze of the man – who furrowed his brow fiercely at Tony for a long moment before snapping his gaze to the rest of the people in the room. “All of you are supposed to have off. Get the hell out of my offices. I’m not paying a dime of overtime and you sure as hell aren’t going to stay here and get on the off-staff’s nerves.”

With a sigh, some of the people broke away and went back to desks, while Carol stood up and tilted her head at Tony. “So let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re not great at walking?”

He slowly shook his head no.

“Right. And you’re not familiar with New York?”

Again, he shook his head no.

“Great. We’ll escort you around. We just got to kill time until dark, and that’s like, maybe three hours.”

“Four,” one of the guys corrected her.

She ignored him to continue, “So we’ll take you around, show you some of the sights. I’ve got a bike, you can sit on it and we’ll walk it. I feel like I should get one of those—”

With huge eyes, Darcy came bouncing over. “One of those horse rides.”

“Those – are horribly touristy—” Carol started to say.

“HORSE RIDES!” Darcy shouted at the top of her lungs, causing Tony to flinch and everyone to turn to look at them. “ _Horse rides_ , Carol, _horse rides_.”

“Goddammit,” Carol muttered, even as Steve came over with James, Clint, Pepper, and three other people Tony couldn’t place right away, one girl and two guys.

Offering Tony his hand, Steve smiled at Darcy. “That actually sounds like a great idea. It’ll be easier on you than walking, Tony. And it looks like it’s pretty fun. We could go for a ride for a bit, head to Brooklyn Bridge Park early. Get a blanket out, sit down, wait for dark. We want a good spot, and we could make a picnic of it.”

Tony looked between the eight of them and couldn’t stop the small smile from appearing on his face. “Yeah? That sounds pretty cool,” he said.

“I’d give you a piggy back ride since you’re so tiny, but that might be embarrassing for you,” one of the guys, as broad and brawny as James, but with both arms, said. “Sam Wilson. Sports desk, really, though I share it with Johnny and Jessica. This one here is Bruce, Bruce Banner. Head of the science pages, and shares his pages with art. Unhappily.”

“I just think—” Bruce began, and Tony vaguely recognized him as the rumpled person Steve had pointed out when speed introductions had happened, but Sam continued talking over Bruce in what seemed to be a familiar fashion.

“And this is Natasha. She handles politics and foreign policy, along with James and Arthur.” Sam smiled wide. “We’ll be your guides to New York today.”

Tony stared at the group of them before saying uncertainly, “What’s a piggy back ride?”

The eight of them looked at one another and one by one, smiles spread across their faces and Sam got down close to Tony. “So it’s like this,” Sam explained excitedly.

***

Tony actually had had a really amazing time the whole afternoon. The horse ride he’d taken with Steve and Carol had been full of them telling him fun anecdotes, pointing out sights, chatting in general about the city and what their job was like at the paper. He had some small emergencies when he realized he needed to use the restroom _immediately_. It had freaked Steve and Carol out, and he couldn’t really explained why he needed to piss every hour, but after they realized that he wasn’t having a heart attack they cut the ride short and got him into a Starkbucks so he could use the bathroom. When he’d come out, all of the eight were there, some of them holding baskets and one of them holding what looked like a stack of blankets. It was a little after six, and Sam grinned widely when he saw Tony.

“Another ride?” he asked.

A little embarrassed, but definitely eager to have another ride, Tony smiled and walked over to Sam, who helped Tony clasp hands around his neck and hitch his legs up around Sam’s waist.

“The park isn’t far from here; we’ll walk and set up our blanket. The rest of the gang will catch up with us and we’ll have a nice dinner, chill until the fireworks start going off. There’s a great view from there,” Steve explained as James resettled the basket in his hands. “It’ll be fun.”

Tony tightened his grip around Sam’s neck and listened to the group talk about last year’s fireworks display. It seemed like a long walk, and Tony began to worry it wasn’t as easy as everyone had made it sound, but before he could really voice his worries, they entered the park. Even though it was, at the most, six-thirty in the afternoon, with dark at eight-thirty and fireworks were supposed to start around nine, there were already a lot of people in the park, setting up with coolers and baskets and blankets. Sam let Tony down carefully as James and Bruce spread out a huge blanket and Steve, Natasha, Carol, Clint, and Pepper began to unpack the baskets. Tony awkwardly moved over to the blanket and nervously stood there as Sam knelt and helped set up what looked to be a propane grill.

“Do you guys… need any help?” he asked tentatively.

“Nah, man – we know what to do. Sit down. You can tell us stuff about _your_ life now. I feel like we chatted at you for hours. You must be tired of our stories,” Sam said easily.

Tony gingerly sat down and tapped a finger against his knee – and then his eyes widened, terrified. His _knee_. If he could feel the prosthetic through his pants’ leg, then Sam – who had given him a ride out to the horse cart and then from the Starbucks to the park – had _definitely_ felt the prosthetic. Terrified, he looked at Sam, eyes wide, and Sam looked up from lighting the grill. The smiled that had been on his face fell off, and worry entered his eyes. “Hey, hey man, you okay?”

Tony looked around at everyone, horrified that they all knew, that they would laugh at him or – or kick him out, or pity him, or _something_. All movement was slowly coming to a halt as the group noticed Tony silently freaking out.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sam said quietly, moving close to Tony and putting a hand out calmingly. “What’s up, buddy?”

Steve was also moving closer, kneeling down and tilting his head. “Anything I can help with?” he asked. “Too much noise? Stimulus? There’re some… well, it’s pretty packed, but we can leave, get a cab if we have to so we could get some quiet away from people—”

“You – my _leg_ —” Tony whispered, fingers bunching at his knees.

Steve frowned, but Sam’s eyes, if possible, got even more solemn and serious. “Look, man, whatever happened, it’s not my place to ask, right? You’ll tell us when you want. It’s cool. You didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re worried about. Barely felt it. You’re too tiny. You’ve gotta eat something while we wait. James makes the best burgers and Pepper has this killer cheesecake recipe—”

The inane chatter – and sincerity – had Tony’s breathing slowly evening out, and he looked back and forth between the two of them before leaning a little towards Sam. “You – it’s okay?”

Sam interrupted himself, cutting off his rambling to say immediately, “Of _course_ it’s okay. You don’t see us treating James any different than anyone, do you? It’s fine, man. And I’m guessing it can suck to walk on it, so you don’t even have to worry about explaining anything else. Alright?”

Slowly, Tony nodded in agreement, and Sam turned back to the grill that was glowing faintly. Before he realized, Steve was putting a gentle hand on Tony’s hand, letting the pads of his fingers tap gently against the back of Tony’s hand. “Hey. You okay? I know you asked to see the fireworks, but maybe you didn’t realize how many people would be here, huh? We could go somewhere else and—”

“No!” Tony said, and then blinked at the vehemence in his voice. “No,” he repeated, softer. “I want to be here. I want to see them up close. I’ve always been in that penthouse, I’ve never left, and I want – I want to see them up close.”

Steve looked at him strangely for a moment, then tentatively patted Tony’s shoulder, slowly telegraphing his moves so that Tony didn’t flinch that time. “You know, you could tell us a little about your life. Like your talking computer. That’s amazing – surely that’s something you can talk about.”

“What do you mean, something I can talk about?” Tony asked, squinting.

“I just mean that obviously you’re uncomfortable with certain questions and topics, and so we’re not going to push you on them. Just tell us whatever you feel comfortable telling us.” With a small grin, Steve leaned forward and whispered, “You could tell me if you have a crush on Bruce, you know. Or even Sam – you’ve smiled enough at him for the evening.”

“What?!” Tony said in shock, jerking back.

Steve froze a moment before a worried look came into his eyes. “Oh – was – was your flirting not for real? Sorry, I – or maybe you were just talking and I misinterpreted. You’re like twelve anyway, right, you can’t be flirting—”

“I’m seventeen!” Tony said indignantly. “And – no, I mean – I mean Bruce is cute and all, and Sam’s built like a tank—”

“You like girls?” Steve said, wincing a little. “I saw you looking at Pepper. I should just keep my mouth shut.”

Groaning, Tony growled out, “Would you let me finish my sentence? I – I think I’m bisexual. I like – I like both. Both kinds. I mean. I’m a virgin, so you know, no experience, but – look, why did you even bring up this conversation, no thank you!”

Steve flushed, but before he could say anything James called out, “Hey, Steve, come over here and cook off these steaks, yeah?”

Steve almost leapt up and dashed over, leaving Tony very confused. Also, very embarrassed – he knew he had no social skills whatsoever, considering he’d only ever been around Obie or Goethe, and Goethe wasn’t exactly the picture of stellar manners—

Tony turned his head to see Goethe standing barely ten blankets away, eyes locked on Tony, face twisted into a smug snarl. Gasping, Tony jerked closer towards the nearest person – Natasha – and clutched onto her arm for dear life.

Frowning, Natasha looked down at him, and then looked over in the direction he was staring. “You okay, kid?” she asked. “Something the matter?”

“He’s here,” he whispered.

Natasha jerked her head up and looked around. “Who?” she asked, immediately going on the offensive. “Where is he?”

But Goethe had disappeared into a crush of people and Tony had no idea where he was. Instead, he clung close to Natasha and glanced about wildly, hoping to see Goethe again and point him out to her.

“Look, Tony, you let us know what the man looks like who’s chasing you and we’ll make sure he never gets close to you again, you got it?” she said fiercely. “You’ll never have to go back unless you want to go back, understand?”

Shivering a little, Tony nodded. And, when it felt like the next few minutes passed by in agonizing terror, Natasha almost literally picked him up and put him in the center of the blanket, surrounded by everyone else. “Stay put,” she said sternly. “No one can get you from the middle of all of us. You’ll be safe there.”

Tony didn’t know why, but he believed her.

***

Steve jumped up and waved wildly in the air when he saw Darcy and the rest of the gang trying to make their way through the many blankets scattered around. It was fast approaching eight-thirty, and the rest of them had eaten dinner and were playing Monopoly – something Tony had apparently never played, and the less Steve thought about Tony and Tony’s life, the better – waiting for everyone else to show up.

Tony had been super nervous since seeing… whoever it was in the crowd, and Natasha and Sam had taken it upon themselves to sit close to him for the rest of the afternoon. Steve had watched Tony cautiously, almost protectively.

The kid was cute, and had a spine of steel when you got his back up. The problem was, of course, that he was being abused and it didn’t look like Steve could stop that from happening.

“He looks familiar.”

Frowning, he turned to look at Pepper’s thoughtful face in the lamplight. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I work at Jonathon and Sons, you know? And right now they’re trying to close out some legal problem for Stark Industries. Turns out the original owner of Stark Industries, Howard Stark, had a will in effect that forbade anyone from turning over his company to anyone other than his son unless his son had been missing for more than fourteen years. It’s a nightmare because legally you can declare someone dead after I think it’s five years – I’d have to check precedent, since missing persons aren’t exactly common – but Stark’s will puts that law on the backburner. Stane’s been contesting the will for some years now, pointing out that part of the problem of running the company was that big decisions were difficult without full control, or something. Anyway, there are pictures of the Stark family. And Tony looks a lot like Howard Stark. Maybe they’re relatives or something,” Pepper murmured.

“Maybe,” Steve said doubtfully. “But that doesn’t explain why the kid’s been abused and kept in that penthouse for years. If he is related in some way, wouldn’t it be better to just kill the kid and show the body?”

Pepper laughed. “You’d think so, right? It’s probably just my over-active imagination. He’d literally be like the damsel locked in the tower guarded by the fierce dragon.” Chuckling, she turned to get the plates out so that the people, who were starting to really fill out the blanket and crowd the whole place, could eat something.

Steve looked up to see Sam standing with Tony and taking Tony over to some of the port-a-pottys. With a wince – those things made Steve’s eyes water – he turned to the baskets and began serving the food.

Tony needed to go to the bathroom an awful lot. He was clearly abused in some way, scared of loud noises and particularly of angry voices, unused to being touched. Something was up with his leg that made it extremely difficult for him to walk. He was also obviously not socialized, unable to interact with others because he failed to pick up social cues that everyone else understood. He was nervous and flighty but ridiculously brilliant (he’d nearly burned off his face, or at least his eyebrows and eyelashes, because he’d gotten bored and upgraded the propane grill).

He was a mystery, and Steve was finding out that he wanted to learn more about this kid than about Stane, even if it could be the scoop of the year to find hard proof Stane was double-dealing. He also knew that Bucky was watching him speculatively, an eyebrow raised, and since he really didn’t want to talk about his attraction to a boy who was most likely underage, he kept himself busy serving food.

Sam came back with Tony, helping the shorter male maneuver his way around people, and it was just about when they reached the edge of the blanket that the first firework went off in a thunder of sound and explosion of red and blue sparkles.

Tony whooped in surprise and nearly fell over backwards; Steve jumped to his feet, but Sam waved him back. Taking a closer look at Tony, Steve smiled a little and sat back down. Tony’s eyes were bright, wide with excitement, fixed firmly on the black night sky as three fireworks went off in quick succession. His wonder was almost contagious, and Steve found himself leaning back on his arms, head tilted up at the sky as he stared in awe at the patterns and bright colors, the little kids shrieking in surprise and delight around them as adults cheered when especially spectacular ones went up.

All too soon, it was over, and with a sigh, Steve began to help pack up the baskets and break down the small camp they had put together. When he turned around, though, he frowned.

“Where’s Tony?” he asked.

The words sent a spark of fear in all of them, and the whole group began looking around, calling out Tony’s name over and over again. It took them fifteen minutes before they gave up, realizing that Tony was just – gone.

“I should have kept a better watch on him,” Natasha said quietly, face mournful. “He said he had seen someone, and he was terrified—”

“We couldn’t legally keep him with us,” Bruce said, but his voice was dejected. “He was probably a minor.”

They milled around a little longer, hoping that Tony would magically appear, but when they were the last ones in the park it was clear that Tony was gone.

***

The next morning, Steve was called into Fury’s office.

“That kid you brought in yesterday.”

Steve swallowed. He felt tired and drained, his joints acting up again and the faint stirrings of a migraine even though he’d taken his medications this morning. “Yes sir?” he said. He’d stayed up half the night worrying about Tony, and the other half having bad dreams about Tony being hurt.

“Find him, and bring him in. I have a friend who’s eager to meet him.”

Steve paused and frowned. “With all due respect, sir, this isn’t a scoop or some headline. Tony’s just a kid.”

Fury lifted his gaze from the papers in front of him to pin Steve with a terrifying glare. With a gulp, Steve did his best to stand his ground.

After a few heart-pounding seconds, Fury growled, “It’s not for a fucking headline, Rogers. Go find the kid and bring him in here! Now get out of my office!”

Before he could really register the command, Steve was stumbling out of the doors and blinking in surprise at the desks around him.

“You okay, Steve?” Clint asked from his desk, phone hovering between the receiver and his ear.

“Yeah…” Steve said, and sighed. “Yeah, I am. I just gotta go see… someone. Stick around near your phone; I may need bail again.”

For a moment, Clint frowned at him in confusion. It wasn’t until Steve was halfway out the door that realization appeared and Clint started to leap out of his chair. “Hold on there a second, Rogers, don’t you _dare_ —”

But Steve was already out the door and zipping down the stairwell and out the doors of the building, making his way down to Stark Tower.

And Tony.

***

This time, Steve didn’t even try to be sneaky about it. He went right up to the front desk on the second floor and said plainly, “I need to speak to the head of security. James Rhodes.”

The woman lifted an eyebrow at him, plainly unimpressed, and glanced down at her computer a moment. “Sit down and wait,” she said dismissively.

Steve nodded his thanks and sat down, letting his feet swing a little as he waited for Rhodes to appear. His interaction with Rhodes had so far been antagonistic – at least, all his interactions except his most recent one, where Tony had strolled (okay, slowly walked, the kid desperately needed exercise) into Rhodes’ office and plopped himself down in front of Rhodes and ordered, then wheedled, for him and Steve to be allowed out of the building. Steve hadn’t expected Rhodes to capitulate, which was why it was weirder when Rhodes had.

Now, an elevator opened and Rhodes strode out, scowling at Steve with lightning pretty much shooting out of his eyes. Not that that really scared Steve – little did, Bucky lamented over and over – and he stood up, squaring his shoulders as much as he could.

“Why the hell are you back in my hair, Rogers?” Rhodes demanded.

“Because I think that that kid I was with yesterday is being illegally kept on the top floor of this building,” Steve said firmly. “And I’m coming to get him out.”

At that, Rhodes stopped, and he stared at Steve with a contemplative look on his face. “Illegally?”

“The kid had never been outside the tower before. He appears to be mildly agoraphobic, and he’s definitely been abused in some way. At the very least, you should at least come with me, as a security officer, and check that everything’s alright.” Steve folded his arms and looked as stubborn as possible.

Rhodes tapped fingers against his thigh for a moment before letting out a small sigh. “You’re lucky I believe you, kid. I have enough proof to just toss you in jail and call you a crazed stalker. Come on.”

Rhodes led Steve to that important-looking elevator Steve had managed to get in that first time and clicked the button. “Now, I don’t know how the hell you got into the penthouse; to go straight up to the top, you need to match the biometrics and say the keycode in order to unlock the doors. But we can go to the top-most level and request permission to enter—”

The doors opened, and the two of them stepped in – and then, before either of them clicked a button or did anything at all, the doors closed and the elevator began _rocketing_ up, going faster than Steve had ever thought possible for elevators.

“What the _hell_?!” Rhodes yelped, gripping onto the sides of the elevator.

Steve inhaled too fast and began coughing hard. There was no explanation, and Steve seriously wondered whether they were just going to crash into the ceiling when suddenly the elevator slowed, and then came to a gentle stop.

Nothing happened for a moment, then two. After a few more heartbeats, Rhodes pressed the open door button – to no result.

“What the _fuck_?” Rhodes muttered, and then reached for his radio.

Just then, the doors slowly slid open. Steve coughed one more time and glanced around. He could hear someone yelling, but from far away, as if in another room. Rhodes frowned, thumbing on the radio and muttering into it, but Steve ignored Rhodes to walk towards the noises and shouting.

“—one simple thing! But you’re worthless, like always, and you’re too stupid to realize when people are pretending to be your friend!” A door slammed, and then there was muttering and growling. Steve crept closer to the office, the door Tony had said was Stane’s personal area in the penthouse, and, crouched down close to the floor, peered around the corner.

In front of the door, a man was standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, hands behind his back. He was stocky, powerfully built, brown hair slightly long, and Steve could see a gun tucked into the man’s belt. Past the man was Obadiah Stane, head of Stark Industries, so red in the face that he terrified _Steve_.

“—believe the nerve of the little brat,” Stane growled, kicking at the closet door and then turning to his desk. “We’ll have to do damage control. Go get me something to drink while I figure this mess out.”

Steve bit his lip. How was he supposed to prove to Rhodes that a kid was here? Already they were trespassing, and it was one thing when Steve was doing what was almost a ritual with Rhodes, appearing and getting kicked out, but to trespass in _Stane’s_ penthouse—

The man nodded. “Of course, sir,” and then he stepped out the door, past where Steve was crouching. When he left, Steve could hear, very softly, someone breathing harshly, shuddering and sobbing almost under their breath.

 _Tony_.

He stumbled into the doorway, shaking with terror at what he was about to do but knowing, _knowing_ , he had to help Tony somehow. “Where’s Tony?!” he demanded.

Stane was visibly shocked, jerking back a little, and then his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing up here?” he said, standing up, and Steve tried not to audibly shake or back down. “I’ll have you in jail so fast—”

“Mr. Stane,” Rhodes said from behind Steve, and Steve let out a small sigh of relief. “Mr. Rogers here has some very serious accusations, accusations I’m inclined to believe.”

Folding his arms, Stane took a challenging step forward. “And what are these accusations?” he demanded.

“You’re keeping a child here!” Steve said, voice a little shrill from nervousness. “A child who’d never been outside before, who’s been locked up here for a long time.”

Stane laughed, spreading his arms wide. “Why would I have a child up here? This is my penthouse, where I stay when I’m in New York. If I want company, I’d go and visit my wife in upstate New York.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind letting us check the place out, look around?” Rhodes asked.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Stane said, voice a little too sharp and unctuous to be anything but sincere, “but you need a warrant to go poking around my house. This is illegal entry in the first place.”

Steve frowned, even as Rhodes said calmly, “Steve brought worries to me about a child, worries I was inclined to believe due to yesterday’s events and your sudden return to New York. When I pressed the button on the elevator, I was brought directly to the suite. I assumed you had allowed me entry, because you did not have to allow the elevator to reach this level.”

“I never allowed the elevator to come up here,” Stane growled. “I would thank you to leave immediately. Goethe can show you out.”

Why _had_ the elevator acted in such a way? Steve slowly followed Rhodes out of the room where the other man – Goethe, looking like nothing but a pit bull dead set on chewing them to bits – pointed the way to the elevator.

He was about to enter when he realized what it was that was bothering him. Whirling on his heel, he said quickly, “Pascal, where is Tony?”

“Young sir is currently located in the office closet,” the computerized voice said over the speakers.

“What the _hell_?” Rhodes said, stepping out of the elevator and looking around. “Who said that?”

“Tony made a computer program named Pascal, and Pascal takes care of Tony. Don’t you? You’re the one who brought the elevator right up, didn’t you?”

“I did, Mr. Steve. My visual logs show that Mr. Stane returned to the penthouse approximately forty minutes ago and had a verbal altercation with sir before placing sir physically in the closet and locking it.”

Rhodes pushed past Goethe and thumbed his radio. “Stane, I have enough reason to call in the cops, even if what he said was false. But I suspect it’s not false, considering I _saw_ this kid yesterday. Are you going to let me look in the office, or—”

Steve darted around Stane and tripped into the office, aiming right for the closet.

“Young man, you will be in a heap of trouble if you—”

Steve grabbed at the handle and threw open the door. “Tony!” he said.

On the floor of the closet, lip split and looking terrified, Tony looked up at him in shock and more than a little confusion. “Steve?” he croaked, voice raw.

“Come out of there, Tony,” Steve whispered, reaching down and gently hooking his hands in Tony’s armpits, pulling the slight male up off the ground. “Come on. This is done. It’s over.”

Looking over his shoulder at Rhodes, he saw anger and disgust in Rhodes face as Rhodes clicked on his radio and said something rapid-fire into it.

“You don’t have to stay here anymore, Tony,” Steve began, which was when Tony began squirming and fighting.

“No, you don’t understand, I have to stay here!” he said, voice panicked. “I have to stay here!”

Confused, Steve let go since that seemed to be upsetting Tony and asked, “Why, Tony? Why can’t you leave?”

“If I leave, someone might kill me like they killed my parents!” Tony said, and his voice was shaking, terrified, and definitely bewildered. “I can’t go. I can’t let anyone know I’m here!”

The elevator’s doors opened – Steve hadn’t even noticed that the doors had closed – and more security officers came out of the doors. Rhodes didn’t even seem to notice; he was shoving past Stane and walking towards Steve and Tony. “Hey, man,” he said quietly. “You remember me?”

Tony had been close to hyperventilation, and he still was pretty close to what sounded like a panic attack, but he managed to stutter out, “I m-met you y-yesterday.”

“Nah, Tones,” Rhodes murmured, smiling a little. “My dad used to work for you. I wasn’t quite sure you really were that little squirt – who knew you’d grow bigger than that? I certainly didn’t. But you liked to build tracks with your Hot Wheels to make your race cars go over the back of the couch and land on the coffee table.”

Tony’s brow was furrowed, and Steve tentatively placed a hand on Tony’s back. Tony didn’t even seem to notice, and his panicking had been diverted as he frowned at Rhodes for a long moment. “You… were my babysitter?”

“A while ago. A _long_ while ago. I thought you’d died in that car attack, you know, otherwise I’d have _totally_ beaten your ass at racetrack design.” Squatting down, Rhodes put a hand out to Tony and smiled softly. “Why don’t you come down to my office, and I can show you the first spaceship we ever put together with each other?”

After a couple of moments, Tony took Rhodes’ hand and pulled himself up. “I can’t walk all that great,” he muttered, embarrassed, but Rhodes waved a hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry, man. It’s just to the elevator, and then to my office. I’m sure Rogers here will join us.” Rhodes didn’t try to reach out and touch Tony, and Steve was really happy at that because if Tony had been jumpy yesterday, he was ten times that today.

With good reason.

“Definitely,” Steve said, jumping up and making sure he stayed between Tony and Stane.

Tony got into the elevator and then laughed a little, tentatively reaching out to hook a finger on Rhodes’ uniform. “You were… Rhodey, right?”

Rhodes beamed, so excited that he was nearly vibrating. “Well, you called me that. My dad’s name was James, and there was another James in the kitchen, so you said you’d just call me Rhodey so there’d be no confusion. You were very upset that I didn’t like—”

“I wanted to call you Jim!” Tony said, and Steve absently reached up and brushed fingers against the back of Tony’s neck. Seeing Tony this excited, this happy, was something absolutely stunning. “I remember you! You wanted to go into the air force. You loved planes. I liked Star Trek and I wanted to call you Jim but you said no so I called you Rhodey instead!”

The elevator opened its doors on the 25th floor and Rhodes helped Tony into the security office, setting him down in a comfortable chair and handing Tony a drink. Tony was chattering excitedly, and Steve had _never_ seen anything in Tony’s behavior that showed a chatterbox hiding, waiting to pop out of the quiet and reserved little guy he had seen all yesterday. There was a lot he didn’t know about Tony, he realized, even as he realized he really wanted to find it all out.

Steve leaned against the door and watched Tony become easier and easier with Rhodes, especially when Rhodes pulled out a spaceship model – the Millennium Falcon – and Tony began to excitedly talk to Rhodes about the movies. After a couple of minutes, Rhodes got up and left Tony to undoing the model and moved to the doorway with Steve.

“Stane’s been taken down to the police station for questioning. Even if they don't find him guilty of abuse – which, considering you pulled a crying child out of a closet, I doubt – he’s still going to have to try and explain why he had the heir of Stark Industries hidden in his penthouse while he’s nearly reached the point of having the entire Stark fortune transferred to his name.” Rhodes sighed and rubbed the back of his neck before saying quietly, “I appreciate you’re here, man. But I don’t know what to tell you. Technically, Tony becomes a ward of the state, since he’s not 18 yet. I don’t want to send him back to the penthouse, so he’s just gonna chill here. I’m sure you have some kinda job, don’t you?”

Awkwardly, Steve looked back at where Tony was intensely concentrating on the model on the table, and then met Rhodes’ gaze seriously. “I don’t want to leave him alone. If you tell me to leave, I will, but I won’t leave him until he asks me to. I don’t know how this works out in the courts or anything, but… he can come home with me. With you, even – he _knows_ you. He only met me yesterday, and that’s when I… broke into the penthouse…”

Rhodes looked both resigned and furious, somehow, and he said bitingly, “Yeah, that’s not going to help your case any. By now I should have gotten a restraining order to keep you out of the tower.” He stopped, and then let out a sigh.

“I can hear both of you and I think Steve should go ahead and go,” Tony said suddenly, still focused intently on the Legos in front of him. “Steve, I do actually remember where your office is. I’ll come see you when I can. But I think it’s better that you remain an anonymous tipster or something.”

Steve wanted to argue – Tony was tiny, still shaking a little from the turbulent morning, and Steve didn’t want to leave him alone. But Tony had asked him to leave, so he swallowed and walked over to Tony. “Look, it doesn’t matter about me. If you want me to stay, if it will make this easier for you, I want to stay with you. Okay?”

“I’m – Steve. You need to go before they take you or something,” Tony said, and his eyes were slightly glassy, his speech a little too measured and distinct. “I’ll find you. Okay?”

With a careful, slow movements, Steve spread his arms. Tony flinched, which made Steve’s heart ache, and Steve whispered, “Can I have a hug, Tony? Is that okay?”

A couple of heartbeats passed before Tony lunged forward and clutched at Steve’s shoulders, burying his face against Steve’s chest. Tentatively, Steve brought in his arms and rubbed against Tony’s back.

“You just say the word and I’ll be at your side. Don’t worry about me – my friends have gotten used to handling bail for me. I even know one of the guys down at the station well enough to send his kids birthday cards. Okay? I want you to be okay. I want you to be alright. Call me if you need me. That’s the only order I’m going to give you, so you better follow it.” Steve leaned down and pressed a tentative kiss against the top of Tony’s head.

Tony held on for a few seconds longer before pulling away. “Okay,” he said, taking in a steadying breath. “Okay.”

Smile crooked, Steve stepped back and turned to Rhodes. “Take care of him, yeah?”

“Of course,” Rhodes said seriously, and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Now you really should get out of here.”

It was both too soon and not soon enough that Steve walked back to his office. He didn’t know what was going on, and he still didn’t know what he was going to tell Fury by the time he walked up the stairs and entered the office.

Bucky was there on the phone, but when he saw Steve he slammed the phone down and was immediately crowding Steve, shaking Steve’s shoulder. “What the _hell_ Steve, didn’t we go through this shit yesterday?!”

“Fury asked me to go to Stark Tower,” Steve said softly.

That was enough to have Bucky’s grip loosening, patting gently. “You okay, Stevie? What happened?”

“I’m – hell if I know,” Steve said, breathing in deep and letting the air out in a slow, slightly unsteady stream. “Let me – talk to Fury.”

“Hey, Steve, what the hell happened?” Clint yelled from his desk.

Steve shook his head, walking to the back where Fury’s office was. After a single knock the door was opening and there was a nondescript, bland man in a suit standing there.

“Um…” Steve began, but at the desk Fury beckoned him inside. “Who are you?” he asked.

“My name is Agent Coulson, from the FBI. We’ve been trying to find conclusive proof that Stane is dealing under the table. We approached your employer, Mr. Fury, specifically because your piece on Stark Industries’ weapons was extremely well-put together and researched, if lacking in concrete evidence. It’s why Stane managed to force you to print a retraction, isn’t it? Circumstantial, his lawyers claimed.” The man sat down almost primly. “My partner and I would like to ask you how you managed to put together so many pieces, what your sources were, and—”

“Ah – well,” Steve interrupted, a little embarrassed. “You’ll probably be able to seize all information you needed on Stane. Now.”

Both Fury and Coulson leaned forward, a little creepily. “You don’t say,” Fury said, an almost feral smile on his face. “Why?”

“Well – that kid, yesterday, that you wanted to meet? Turns out Stane’s been keeping him in that penthouse pretty much… all that kid’s life… and, yeah. He’s probably getting arrested right now,” Steve said awkwardly.

“Shit,” the man in black said, standing up. “Sorry, Nick. I need to get down to the station. Good call, and good eye, though.” With that, he swept out of the office in a brisk, efficient walk that didn’t look like running but was certainly faster than normal walking.

Steve blinked at Fury for a few moments before squinting. “You contacted an FBI agent?”

“He’s an old friend,” Fury said. “Do you know I got my start in journalism by interviewing Howard Stark? He didn’t like reporters, would do his best to avoid all journalists. For some reason, he took a shine to me – don’t really know why – so I did a lot of pieces on him. He became a friend, almost. He was so proud of his son, when Anthony was born. Howard was pretty old to be a father, but he wanted to do his best by his son.” Fury paused, and leaned back in his chair slowly, letting out a long breath. “He never got the chance. The Stark family died in a car crash – or, at least, that’s what I reported. It’s never what I believed. Howard was an alcoholic, had plenty of DUIs. He’d not once touched a drop of alcohol when around his son. Sure, he wasn’t around his son a lot, but he whenever he was with his son, he stayed away from the drink.”

“Did you – recognize Tony?” Steve said in surprise.

Fury rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “I wasn’t sure. He sure as hell looked like Howard, at least. Even Potts noticed that. This isn’t your story. In fact, hell, I’m not going to start reporting this until other papers get a hold of it.” He smiled bitterly. “The poor kid’s not been in front of the media at all, and now they’re gonna tear him apart. You’re going to make sure that that doesn’t happen in our paper.”

***

It had been three weeks, and only texting with Rhodes and Bucky’s determination to keep Steve from being arrested had kept Steve from trying to break into the penthouse again, trying to see Tony. The return of the Stark heir had hit the papers like a bomb, instantly displacing all top stories, even the upcoming elections, and every time Steve saw another picture of Tony looking caught off guard and nervous in another newspaper, he ground his teeth a little more and did his best not to go storming off to locate Tony.

His friends did their best to help keep him distracted, from sending him on some of the better stories to taking him out nightly.

“He’s jailbait, you know!” Clint shouted loudly over the club music. “You could get arrested!”

Steve limply trailed his finger through the condensation of the violently neon green drink and tried not to sigh again. He was already acting too much like a lovelorn teenager; he wasn’t going to add to it by bemoaning his fate.

“C’mon, Stevie!” Bucky said, shoving into the booth followed by three girls, all in various states of giggling and tipsy. “Come and dance. It’ll keep your mind off things.”

“The only reason I haven’t left by now is because I’m your designated driver,” Steve sighed, then winced internally. Traitorous brain.

“Nah, man, I already called a cab for them,” Sam said, and patted Steve’s back. “Give the kid time. He’s been through a lot of upheaval, if the newspapers are right.”

The current prevailing theory in the media was that Stane had had Stark’s parents killed; no one had denied it yet, though that could be because SI’s PR team was pulling long overnight hours to keep the company from going under. Steve bit at his lip and checked his watch. Barely eleven.

He was turning into an old man.

“Alright, I’m heading out. Call me if anything… happens,” Steve said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam smiled, and it was a soft, almost understanding smile. “Go home, get your head on straight. This kid’s gonna come out fine, you know it.”

Steve nodded and left the club as quickly as he could extricate himself from its loud, pumping noise. He was supposed to drive Clint’s small car back, with all of them poured into its seats, but in case Sam – who’d only had two drinks the whole evening, and a full meal beside – wanted to drive that home, he decided to walk. It was late enough that the streets weren’t that great, but early enough that he didn’t grip his pepper spray in his hand and power walk home. Within fifteen minutes, he was in his neighborhood, and three more minutes had him up on his landing, sticking his key in the lock.

It met no resistance.

Immediately, he gripped onto his pepper spray and slowly opened the door. The lights were mostly off, save the ones in the living room, and he crept down the narrow hallway, heart beating in his throat. Once he reached the small corner, he took a steadying breath and the whirled around the corner, pepper spray out.

Tony looked up from Steve’s couch.

“Hey, Steve,” he said, and he looked so much different in the pictures, so much more tired and drawn, shoulders slumped and curved to make himself smaller. “Sorry. I hacked your address. And then picked your lock.”

Steve lowered his arm, too surprised to say anything except to get out, “I didn’t know you knew how to pick locks.”

“Well. Locked up for thirteen years, apparently. I got bored.” Tony shifted awkwardly, and then said softly, “Are you mad at me?”

“What? No! Why would I be?” Steve said, aghast. “Tony, how did you get here?”

Tony waved a phone absently. “I have a driver now. He’s parked somewhere, I suppose. But you never came to see me.”

“You told me to leave, though,” Steve said. “You – you said to leave. That I should go.”

“Every other reporter has their recorder in my face,” Tony murmured. “Except you. Except all of you.”

For a long moment, Steve stared at Tony, and then he sat down next to Tony and tentatively put his arms out.

Tony threw himself into Steve’s arms and clutched tight. “I wanted to see you. I just… didn’t want you stuck with me. You have a job. I couldn’t – and I expected to see you.”

Steve thought back to that hectic day, Stane’s muffled shouts: _‘…people pretending to be your friends!’_ Clearing his throat, he said softly, “My boss? You saw him, that one-eyed guy? Tall?”

Still curled tight against Steve’s side, he felt more than saw Tony’s tiny nod.

“Well, he knew your dad. They might not have been best friends, but they were good ones. And he felt really bad about how you’d be treated in the media, because he told all of us that we couldn’t hound you for interviews. We wanted to make things easier for you, Tony – not harder.”

“You could have texted or something,” Tony grumbled.

Chuckling, Steve rubbed his thumb over the base of Tony’s skull. “How? You got your phone after I left. You’ve even been in meetings and court proceedings and appointments most of the time, from what I hear on the grapevine.” He dropped a kiss on top of Tony’s head and let out a sigh. “My friends keep trying to get me to forget about you. Or at least, not be arrested, considering how often I tried to break into Stark Tower and if I stick around, someone’s gonna notice and drag up that about me.”

Abruptly, Tony wiggled away and pulled back. He was still too skinny, too tired out by physical exertion, but he had a look of intent seriousness and concentration on his face. “You kissed me like that, back in Rhodey’s office.”

“Rhodey?” Steve said, confused.

“I’ve asked PASCLE and Rhodey and they say that type of kissing is like – family kissing. Like you think I’m your baby brother. Or kid. Or something.” Tony looked at him closely, gaze extremely intent. “I get that I don’t understand a lot of social cues but I’m just going to say this before I stop myself I really like you, I want to kiss you on your mouth. And other places.”

Tony’s voice was rapid-fire, and Steve blinked at him a moment before blushing. “Um. Well. I just want to say that – ah – I’m twenty-two, and you’re not eighteen yet, and—”

“That doesn’t sound like a ‘no, Tony, NO,’ that sounds like ‘maybe, when you’re eighteen in ten months, and we can cuddle in the meantime.’ Because your cuddles are seriously the best. And that also sounds like ‘we can’t do actual sex but we can do other things’ which sounds seriously amazing and I’d like that, please,” Tony said, still staring intently at Steve.

Steve coughed. “Um. I thought you were – in that penthouse, for like, ever?”

Rolling his eyes, Tony muttered, “I’m more than capable of getting porn on the internet, and I’ve watched _so many_ movies. So many, Steve. I bet I know more than you.”

“You probably do,” Steve murmured. “I don’t own a television.”

Tony gaped at him, and then looked around the living room again. “What the hell. Even I had a television and I was locked up for thirteen years.”

He said it casually, so easily, but Steve carefully put his hand out to brush against Tony’s shoulder – and Tony still jumped a little. “Hey. You don’t have to pretend that it doesn’t matter to you, you know? It’s okay. That’d mess me up. That’d mess anyone up. You can – well. You can be yourself here. I don’t want you to – to have to pretend for me.”

Tony was too loose, too relaxed, that it was obviously fake as he said, “Why? How would you even know if I’m pretending?”

“Because I see those pictures every day and it takes everything in me not to tear up the newspapers?” Steve said, a little wryly. “Because I saw you three weeks ago, face lit up with fireworks, and know what your real smile looks like?”

“All of my smiles are real. They exist, don’t they?” Tony muttered, and then he let out a sigh and slumped over, draping himself like a cat over Steve’s legs. “I’m so tired, Steve. I just – it’d be easier, if you were the reporters.”

Thinking back to his boss, and how his boss had known Tony’s dad, Steve smiled. “Well, I think I have an idea about that…”

***

**STARK HEIR REVEALS ALL**

Young billionaire Anthony Stark gave an exclusive interview to reporter Steve Rogers, in which he detailed his captivity at Stark Industries’ former CEO Obadiah Stane…

***

**STARK HEIR UNABLE TO RUN A BUSINESS?**

Anthony Stark’s first order of business was to shut down weapons manufacturing, the lifeblood of Stark Industries…

***

**STARK INDUSTRIES MAKES A COMEBACK**

Stark Industries opened 70 points above expected estimates as SI launches its new brand of tablets…

***

**STARK INDUSTRIES CEO GAY?**

Anthony Stark was spotted in Central Park last weekend with renowned reporter Steve Rogers. The two of them shared what looked to be an intimate lunch together…

***

**ANTHONY STARK REVEALS ALL**

“…not going to define myself for your pleasure. I love Steve. He loves me. And that’s all there really is too it…:

 


End file.
